Saturday, June 23, 2012

On October 14, Lazar Hayward feigned a heart attack in excitement
upon seeing Dwyane Wade come on the court for Marquette’s Midnight Madness.On January 31, Wade brought Lebron to cheer MU past Seton Hall.On
April 1 in Boston, Wade finally found a seam in Doc Rivers’ defense to hit a
layup for his 14,859th NBA point with 6:35 to go in the second quarter to pass
Mo Lucas as the top NBA scorer to ever come out of Marquette (see table of all
players below).And Thursday, Wade was
able to celebrate his second title after Hayward grabbed the last rebound and
scored the final basket of the 2012 season.

“I was so blessed at 24 to be able to win a championship, but I didn’t go through enough … (Now) after 6 years, going through a 15-win season, going through a lot of stuff in my personal life … this right here … I know how hard it was to get back to the mountaintop … because nothing is guaranteed.” – Dwyane Wade response to the difference between his two titles

DON’T BUY INTO THE “WADE FLOPS AND WHINES” BOGUS ATTACKS

Wade continued to make his Marquette family proud with his
humility throughout the playoff interviews this year. I was sorry to see a few MU fans buy into the
“Wade flops,” or “Wade whines,” bandwagon on a couple of occasions. Maybe I am sensitive to it because I run
polls every week on how quickly people turn when someone is "spinning" them like coaches do when they hope to turn sentiment against a tough opponent to get a few calls to go the other way.

I love James Hardin, but in the final game only his beard
was injured twice and he sat on Wade once to get three fouls called on the
Heat. Wade has drawn 9,000 fouls in the
NBA, and with the software now used to draw up EVERY one of them in video, it
wasn’t hard to put together 30 or so really bad calls in his favor when he
clearly wasn’t fouled (well under 1% of all fouls he’d drawn) to try swing the
pendulum the other way with him NOT getting calls he should have on
drives. Anyone who has ever referred
basketball at half the speed of the NBA knows it’s amazing how many calls NBA
refs get right.

WADE A CLASS ACT AFTER THICK AND THIN

So don’t buy into the critics.Wade has been such a class act these playoffs
as he hascomplimented Doc Rivers’
defense, Russell Westbrook’s incredible play, and showed the humility of
someone who realizes he became perceived as a bad guy last year because of the
Celebration, but really seems to have his life in perspective.Even though I don’t know Dwyane or Siovaughn
even casually, I was devastated when word of the divorce ended the story
bookthat had played out with the
elementary school sweethearts celebrating the 2006 NBA title.

I always pray that married couples end up back together even
though I realize in so many cases like this it would appear to be impossible. But in a tough situation, Wade's interview with Parenting and his interview shortly after the latest championship should certainly make all of the MU family proud to call him one of our own:

“I was so blessed at 24 to be able to win a championship,
but I didn’t go through enough … (Now) after 6 years, going through a 15-win
season, going through a lot of stuff in my personal life … this right here … I
know how hard it was to get back to the mountaintop … because nothing is
guaranteed.”

I’m not saying the MU family should all have rose
colored glasses. I shocked an ESPN radio
host this week when he said, “You have the best player in the league with one
of the top 10 players in the league in Wade,” and I responded by saying Wade
may have just been top 15 this season.
Wade is 30, and while people talk about leaving it all on the floor in
a game, Wade is going to leave it all on the floor for his career. He is playing more beat up than he was for
the first title, he is not a huge guy like Lebron who can take as many hits without eventual impact on the high flying act that was still evident on the late alley-oop lay-up in the clincher. Who knows how long he will continue to be truly elite –
though he certainly was again for most of the playoffs.

WADE 2ND TO ONLY MCGUIRE; 7 NBA PLAYERS IN 2013 FOR 1ST TIME SINCE 1980?

When I wrote my book on Marquette basketball a few years
back, the two pictures on the cover were of McGuire and Wade for a reason -
Wade may always be the second most important figure in the history of Marquette
basketball for the rest of history.

McGuire took MU to the Final Four twice and created enough
buzz along the way that in 1979 and 1980 MU had eight players in the NBA for
the only time in history (Whitehead, Lee, Ellis, Tatum, Walton, Lucas, Chones
along with McNeill for his last year in 1979 and Toone for his only year in
1980).

Wade’s 2003 season resulted in the other Final Four, and many a great guard coming to MU to follow in his footsteps through a Big East conference MU likely never could have joined without Wade's 2003 run. There is even a chance that next year there could be seven MU players
in the NBA for only the fourth year in NBA history if DJO and Crowder make it
and Hayward stays, since Novak, Matthews, Butler and Wade seem like locks.

Even during and after the McGuire years, the only other year
that MU had seven NBA players was very briefly during the 1974 season when
Allie McGuire played a few games to join McNeill, Chones, Lackey, Meminger,
Thompson and Kojis. In fact, this year was the first season since 1981 that MU
had five players in the NBA.

If we rate players by the NBA Efficiency Rating (the five
positive things you can do for a team minus the three negative things you can
do) then Mo Lucas is actually still the greatest MU/NBA player with his 9306
rebounds, but Wade could catch him in just two more years. Wesley Matthews is already the 10th greatest
MU player ever to play in the NBA by this measure, and he could pass McNeill,
Meminger, Whitehead and Thompson to be 6th all-time if he plays just five more
years at the same level as his first few.

WILL #4 CHONES CALL CROWDER’S GAMES NEXT YEAR?

Maybe Jim Chones will be calling Jae Crowder’s number during
his Cleveland Cavaliers broadcasts next year, and DJO will be impersonated some
of Wade’s moves around the NBA.

Let’s not be fair-weather fans of Wade though – whether he
is still competing for titles or winding down his career as a role player one
day, he will always live through the current and future greats who would have
never come to MU without him lifting MU back to the top again and then staying
loyal to the school when frankly he does not need us any more but appears to
want us as family.

Here are the career NBA Efficiency Ratings for all MU
players, with a “+” indicating a player who could still add to his total.